Oh, No!!!

I’m on vacation in Maine and had great day until I figured out I accidentally deleted all of  the pictures from my camera. Trying lots of things but it’s not looking good. :( 

Until next time...

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Actually, at this point, I've already left. This morning, Ward and I flew to Maine for a some much needed R and R. We are visiting with my sister and family as well as meeting with friends and being tourists.

The trip was uneventful but it was painfully obvious as we made our way through the airport that Ward and I are older than Millennials. For example, our jeans didn't have any huge gaping holes and our coffee came from home instead of from Starbucks. We also had paper boarding passes and crossword puzzles. Oh, well. Potato, Potaato

Today we are with my sister and tomorrow we will take off for Bar Harbor. I'm not sure if I will be able to post again for a few days, but I'll try.

Until next time...

Every where I turned at my sister's house, I was greeted by
their bumper crop of butternut squash.
 I think they harvested a total of 85 from a few vines.

I like to visit libraries whenever I travel.
This is a display at the local library of care owls which are based on Finnish folk tradition. 

And a Good Time Was Had By One and All

Every year my father-in-law, Leo, hosts a pig roast and last weekend was his 15th year of sponsoring this event. In the beginning, he did most of the work with support from his kids, but now at 85, his kids do most of the work with support from their father. Everyone pitched in to make the picnic a success where truly a good time was had by one and all.

Below are a few pictures from the day.

Leo had a nice yard for the event with a good combination of trees and grassy areas.

However, with the trees came several exposed roots which we tried to mark
especially since there were guests there with limited mobility.

The weather was great that day, but there had been a lot of rain the week before which resulted in soggy ground. Some of the chairs sunk several inches into the ground resulting in some near catastrophes before we figured out that cardboard under the legs would prevent the problem.

There were festive touches here and there such as these pig lights that Miss Landers gave to Leo.

and the paper mache pig made by my sister-in-law.

Ward does the pig roasting and carving every year. Other guests bring sides or a dessert.

There were guests of all ages such as this little boy, who could not take his eyes off of the carving,
to many in the over 80 crowd.

One of the highlights in recent years has been the family and friends band. This year there was an added bonus of a gospel singer, one of Leo's friends.

Several years ago, Leo decided he was going to join the family band by playing bongos. This year his musical persona donned a grey beard while playing. You're never quite sure what Leo has in store, but his new look definitely contributed to the good time that was had by one and all.

Everything Old is New Again

When Wally was in elementary school, he had an assignment to make a product and sell it. He had to do every step of the project from conceiving the product, manufacturing it, and selling it.  Wally's product was a book holder made from PVC pipe. He completed his assignment successfully, and then he and Theo also made them for Christmas gifts that year. I used mine mostly to hold cookbooks while I was following a recipe in the kitchen. Over time, we stopped using the holder and only kept one of the several we had when we moved. And this was mostly for nostalgia reasons.

Fast forward to last weekend when Wally was visiting. He asked if we had any of those holders around because he wanted to use it as a holder for his notebook computer. After a bit a searching, I found one and he tried it out. It worked just as he wanted. There were two different angles he could utilize and his notebook could be displayed either vertically or horizontally. Perfect. The old book holder from 4th grade found a new life. Like they say, "Everything old is new again."

Here's a breakdown of the parts in case
you're interested in making one.

Note: I'm not sure that this example is going to do anything to help my difficulty in releasing clutter that might be useful some day. But I'm working on it.

The Ebb and Flow of Blogging

I've been blogging for over seven years now and it seems like just yesterday when I started. And sometimes, it seems like forever. When I started, I wasn't even sure what a blog was, but was I encouraged by a friend to give it a try. I had all kinds of stories kicking around in my head that I wanted to tell. However, I soon found out that most of these were not my stories to tell because I needed to respect the privacy of those around me. So I experimented until I found a comfortable rhythm. 

There were periods when I posted every day and usually there were no more than a couple days that went by without a post. It wasn't until recently that the frequency of my posts dropped of markedly. Even then, the longest I have gone without posting is two weeks. I find that pretty remarkable for someone who has never embraced writing. I was the person who managed to get out of college with only one English class and avoided classes with a lot of papers like the plague. However I found out with this blog, that although I thought I don't like to write, I do like to share my thoughts with others.

During my time as a blogger, I have made many friends. That's been the unexpected benefit to this experience. However, overtime, I have gone through at least four sets of blog friends. People whose blogs I read and people who read and commented on my blog. It was interesting as we shared our experiences and got to know each other. But life changes for everyone, and blogs and blog friends came and went. 

So I find myself in an ebb of blogging right now. Most of my current friends only post occasionally and I find myself doing the same thing. Part of the reason for this is I only have so much mental energy. As simple (and mistake riddled) as my posts seem, they take an effort to compose. And the energy to do this is taken up with other things.

So what does all of this mean? I don't know. Part of me is just tired and bored with the whole thing and feels like I've said everything I have to say. Another part of me wants to jump in to revamp things and create new content. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Until next time...